prayer – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

September 14, 2023September 14, 2023

Fountain

“Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love.”

By the time Richard Foster penned these words in his important book, “Prayer – Finding the Heart’s True Home”, he had gleaned some insights through years of learning to walk with Christ.

Richard had come to recognize that Christian prayer, in its most basic form, is not an exercise to enter into as a religious performance.

Many good and sincere church-goers become burdened down over time under the load of dutiful praying. Conversing with God (the actual meaning of what it is to pray), if engaged as a religious duty becomes a load that crushes.

Yes, serious praying like intercession (deep-hearted appeals for God’s watch-care over other people’s concerns) can feature intense times of wrestling in the arena of spiritual conflict. Still, when the Jesus-follower prays – even with intensity – the praying carries a quality of hope and of trust. Sitting quiet before him – recalling good that he has brought to one’s life – voicing thanksgiving. Prayer entered into in such a heart posture allows the stirring of a fountain within. The love fountain.

The reason? Communing with God in Christ, regardless the form it takes, is marked by faith and hope, of confidence and assurance in Father-God’s loving care. Unlike a vending machine where what happens is all about transaction, the relationship between Jesus and his apprentice is centered in just that. . . Relationship.

Thanksgiving mingled in worship invariably leads to prayer rising heavenward in some fashion. In fact, where these two expressions are offered up in one’s life – thanksgiving and worship – prayer is happening.

Love works that way. It is not self-seeking but generous – even when the answer we may have hoped for does not get realized. Love leans in. Navigating life out of the love fountain ensures teeth-gritting finds no place to land.

August 31, 2023

For Normal People

The guitarist who does the strumming is vital to the exercise of generating attractive sounds. The most artfully crafted instrument only reflects practical worth once it is held and strummed. The instrument’s purpose for being does not get realized until it rests in the musician’s hands. It is here where movement and melody get set in motion.

Probably the most wonderful thing about offering up praises and petitions is the fact that praying is not a solo act. The disciple is not on his own. Any Christ-follower taking up the instrument of prayer in hopes of bearing fruit, does so with the chief maestro closely at hand. “The one who remains in me and I in him”, promises Jesus, “bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”*

As apprentices of Jesus ‘shadow’ his movements – praying, as he often did, passages from the Book of Psalms, etc. – they happily draw upon resources beyond themselves. Just as the first disciples needed help along the way – “Lord, teach us. . .” – the wise seeker after Jesus takes up helpful praying tips from fellow travelers. Guidance offered up in easy-to-grasp ways can usher oxygen into a person’s place of prayer.

A book with an appealing title, How to Pray – A Simple Guide For Normal People, by Pete Greig serves as an example.

A present-day marvel reflecting sustained, fruit-bearing times with God has emerged on the scene. A worldwide movement, organic in its spread, known simply as 24-7 Prayer.

Pete Greig, self-deprecating pastor of a church near London, references himself as “the increasingly bewildered founder of 24-7 Prayer”. The interdenominational movement of prayer, mission and justice got its start in 1999. Since that time, continuous, non-stop praying has taken on a life of its own. Thousands of prayer rooms dotting the earth’s surface have sprung up across more than half the world’s nations. The spread growing.

Our world – ourselves – can stand to gain much from a crisper understanding of and nearer walk with Jesus. What better approach than by entering the sensible, mysterious, Spirit-empowered means available to us, through him.

Lord, teach us to pray.

August 10, 2023

Super Model

Our role model, Jesus, was intentional at the start of his mornings, carving out space and time to personally give himself to the direct presence of the Father. We in our day might label this as his quiet time. Regardless, the action was predictable. Conversing with God is a thing he looked forward to, this life rhythm of communion.

Inhaling and exhaling air is an activity we (as did Jesus) practice a lot while seldom ever consciously thinking about it. Breathing comes automatically. In his repeated ‘practice’ of meeting with God upon his daily risings, Jesus had grown to ‘automatically’ pray. Not robotically, as in responding to external commands, but meeting with his Abba Father as a much-beloved offspring. He (unlike me whose mind far too easily might get hijacked by distraction) purposely – eagerly? – pushed aside the many lesser attractions vying for attention.

Nothing going on around Jesus on any given occasion commanded his attention more than nearness to Abba. Communing with the father trumped all.

The Spirit of Jesus invites us, his beloved apprenticing friends, to this same lifestyle he enjoyed while navigating the many winding, hilly terrains of earth’s pilgrimage. He really does.

Christlike living, simply put, involves prayer-centered living.

Jesus’s predictable beginning-of-day habit of prayer was no less familiar to him than his other common practices – breakfasting, teeth-cleaning, sandal-strap latching.

Doesn’t it seem reasonable that apprentices of Jesus are those persons who regularly apply themselves in patterning their lives after him? In dependence on him, routinely employing those practices that clearly marked his own life rhythms.

Summing up. It is not complicated. The call of the disciple is to,

(1) Engage the common practices that he, the son of man, routinely undertook

(2) Often ask Jesus for his help in putting in place a practice (such as prayer in its varied forms)

(3) Mark out a space where, upon waking each new day, the practice gets underway.

Remember. The disciple is not one who faultlessly follows, but one who follows the faultless One. Receiving from his table generous servings of grace at every step.

June 8, 2023June 9, 2023

In Process

Taking as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.

Wait a minute. . . he did that? I am to do that?

That Serenity Prayer line will rattle a person’s status quo underpinnings.

To take on life as it really is we must deal with resistance toward and engagement with the stink of the journey.

In what universe do you find a lame man with a limp openly bearing witness to his “beautiful feet on the mountains bearing good news”*? Can beauty flower and flourish in the middle of contrary forms? Are not all bad things. . . well. . . bad?

The religious tradition I was fostered in generally prescribed an unwritten list of responses to adversity whenever it came calling. Resist – Rebuke – Refuse.

Pain does not bring good to a person’s life. Resist it.

Adversity is not a pathway to human betterment. Rebuke it.

God is not one to bring his children into places of suffering. Refuse it.

In some communities, too, a notion prevails that anything of a non-religious nature is to be avoided – certainly not enjoyed. In my old age I’m drawn to jazz music, gentle instrumentals. Taking in cool smooth blends of light piano, an old upright bass and soft guitar or sax brings a kind of therapeutic effect. I digress.

Jesus took the world as he found it. He resisted straightening out all the bad stuff during his years walking the earth. He did not tackle in a quick moment all the long string of horrors, did not rid the world of them. Not then and not now. The unspeakable pain brought on from evil did not cease upon his entry to the world. He came to the world as it was and lived in it, even ministered in it – where it was, the way he found it – not the way he would have wished it to be.

It seems that God (being all-knowing and wise) opts to allow many of man’s choices – destructive as they often are – to play out unblocked on history’s stage. For now, anyway. If righteous Jesus can exercise self-control enough to hold off righting the world’s wrongs by a sweep of his hand, is he not able to supply his disciples grace and patience to live and serve in the midst of the same?

The fact that we are not charged with remedying the world of all its ills comes as a freeing thing to the soul. While we are to steward the roles we are assigned in bringing about change, we understand that straightening the dysfunctions of our own selves calls for plenty attention all its own.

May 11, 2023May 11, 2023

Vine Fed

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace.

The Prayer of Serenity line speaks to the resilient nature of life with God, as well as life with one another. Where tender affection and raw sacrifice must mingle.

Simeon and Rebecca’s wedding rang with the uncommon blends of sacred-and-exhilarating, of solemn-and-ecstatic. My friend Roger officiated.

Revisiting some of his prepared notes, several bits of wisdom there stirred my thinking.

. To give your lives away to another is the work of a lifetime.

. You are leaving home to find home. In some ways you are entering this union having prayed and prepared, knowing what you are saying yes to; and in other ways you have no clue what you are signing up for (here, ‘empathy-laughter’ of already-married couples rippled through the chapel).

The minister continued,

. Jesus invites all of us to walk a narrow way. Love is always a narrow way that limits our options but expands and fulfills our soul. The wedding aisle is one of those narrow ways.

Roger offered further nuggets. One especially drew me in,

. You’re in a room full of friends and family here to witness this covenant of faithful, steadfast, unconditional, and enduring love. And it’s why we invite God into this. Because only His love can empower our love to last a lifetime.

Only God’s love empowers our love to last, to flourish, to remain nurtured and sustained. To be kept alive.

Can we rally an image in our mind’s eye. . . clusters of ripened fruit suspended from an array of vine-fed branches? Lingering a moment with the picture before us we catch a whisper – an inviting voice – directed to our soul,

“I am the Vine”.

April 6, 2023April 6, 2023

‘Aspiring’

Jesus regularly forms his followers, those whose hearts are poised to grow into his likeness. He just waits on us to make a move. The apprentice grows more like his master by observing and doing the things his master (trainer/mentor) does.

Jesus modeled the practice of praying, for instance. Do you, like me, ever wonder why so many preachers, teachers and scholars write and speak on the subject of prayer? Well, Jesus started it.

Jesus not only taught on prayer. He prayed. A lot.

A. W. Tozer notes that Jesus prayed early in the morning and, at times, throughout all the night. That he prayed both before and after the great events of his life, and prayed “when life was unusually busy”.

Wherever you and I happen to be just now on our discipleship journey, we too may come to him as his early ragamuffin followers did those centuries ago. Bringing before him our earnest appeal about talking with God,

“Lord, teach us to pray.”

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time* If we should search for a single line to sum up a fundamental disposition present in a New Testament disciple, we might begin with that phrase.

It was he who spoke of us walking alongside him, donning an ‘easy yoke’. It is Jesus who stirs the imagination, offering a word picture of fruit-producing branches. Each branch, each Christ-follower, draws a plentiful supply of life straight from him – the vine. One day at a time. . one moment at a time.

Through his own frequent rhythms of being present to his Father in prayer Jesus modeled the practice for any and every one signing on as his apprentice. The Lord Jesus, more than any other human, understood prayer’s non-negotiable nature. Endurance and flourishing (two longed-for aims of any meaningful life) find their fountain in direct union with God alone. Nothing else quite works.

I am afraid I have sometimes lacked the ‘sanctified ambition’ witnessed now and then in his early disciples when their hunger surpassed their timidity. “Lord, teach us to pray”.

Those of us who count ourselves as apprentices or apprentice wannabes can thank God every day that their appeal was made. “Teach us to pray” may rank as the most worthwhile request ever voiced by any person anywhere.

Apprentices learn by copying what they see in their teacher.

October 20, 2022October 20, 2022

Longings

“Grant me the courage to change the things I can”.*

I had been a rebel and my stubborn self had grown weary of the struggle. I was finally ready to give up.

For me, giving up meant coming to my senses. It meant the scary but good decision to yield over my will. The road ahead could likely see its own bumpy stretches but I sensed the journey might go much better if I trusted my life (gave myself over) to Jesus Christ. For this to happen, though, I would need to keep wanting him. I found myself wanting to want him.

“Cause me to desire you, Lord”. I offered this cry through the next several years.

Change of character takes time and it begins with turning. Turning a new direction. Desire plays a big role here. The prayer was voiced again and again, “Increase my desire. Grow my desire, please, Lord”.

Wanting God to help change us is akin to growing an appetite.

.The time was the mid-90s. The setting, Tulsa University

“Delicious smell!”, I thought as I tilted my head and let my nostrils draw in the aroma. Few things stir a person’s appetite like catching the whiff of a hot meal in the making, especially following hours on a near-empty stomach.

My volunteer work had brought me to the college apartment complex in hopes of getting in a short visit with some international student friends. I had tried timing my arrival to avoid disturbing their evening meal. The sweet smell of chicken curry floated in the air. Taste buds stirred and my lips moistened.

Desire for a changed life, an entirely changed life, is a little like that.

We all know that natural desire comes through simply being human. We sensed it from our earliest moments, within mere seconds of birth. We craved air right away. You. Me. Each of us fought for our first breath.

Thankfully, we do not remember those stressful entry moments into life. But being human is this way, desires pulling at the whole person. In time we detect somehow that our stirrings are not limited to desires of our body. Our soul, our spirit – those nonphysical interior features of us – hunger as well.

At the top of the appetite list, lies our most meaningful kind of hunger. Our heart hungers. We hunger for something (for someone) beyond the tangible material world. We are made to belong to God. What’s more, we are (astonishingly) designed for routine, joyful interaction with him. His earliest intention for us is that we may grow into the fully human people we were meant to become. The Scripture invites,

“Taste and see. . the Lord is good.”*

November 25, 2015August 28, 2017

Attentive

It wasn’t Bill’s fault. They decided and that was that. They deprived him any say – no decision-making leverage – no voicing an opinion. Not that it would have mattered. They were the farmers. Bill was the horse.

To him it probably seemed unfair. Bill didn’t sign up to entertain adolescent boys, have their spurs gouge his ribs at will, yank the bridle this way and that till the bit bruised his mouth. Who turns teenage boys loose to traumatize a stallion – not to mention a fifteen-year-old gelding?

Such injustice may have prompted the biting assault to my side one Fall day.

Neither my brother Tim nor I – nor our Dad for that matter – were schooled in proper horse care. Still, we weren’t mean to Bill. Not on purpose.

Added to other abuses, the reckless cinching of a saddle strap can be especially annoying evidently, to a horse.

He was a tall animal and at first stood passive as I brought the saddle upward along his left side. Landing it atop the protective wool blanket I reached beneath and across Bill’s mid-section for the strap. Bringing it my way I threaded it through the cinch ring. I then undertook the most demanding task in preparing for an afternoon ride. Apart from catching the horse in the first place.

Tugging the girth strap I scolded Bill under my breath. Stop bloating your belly, horse! Horses will often distend their belly when the saddle is tightened, likely to reduce discomfort. However, a loosened saddle is the result once an animal relaxes their breathing again. In the worse instance this can endanger a rider. Putting my hundred twenty pounds into it I yanked the strap upward. That is when Bill’s head swung around. And his great teeth struck a fierce bite.

DANG, Bill! Dang it!

I leapt, swung at him and grabbed my side all at once. DUMB Bill. Bad horse!

The shock and sting let up after a minute. I lifted my shirt. An orange-red hue marked the area along his teeth marks. Thankfully the skin didn’t break. Dumb Bill.

Drawing a parallel on human behavior in some relationships seems natural. As in child-raising.

Parents will, at times, apply excessive pressure on a child to conform. Discerning what helps both the child and their parents needs time and consideration. Patience and wisdom. Often, prayer.

In time I learned how to reduce excessive pressure to a horse – and teeth marks to my side. Spacing the cinch-tightenings with short walks between can relieve tensions and settle the matter agreeably for both horse and rider.

And being attentive. Not so hard a thing to do, but being attentive must be done on purpose. Noting body language, feelings, considering the persons point of view.

After the barnyard misunderstanding I always saddled Bill attentively. One eye toward the girth strap, the other toward his head. I found that, with practice, it can be done.

June 29, 2017August 28, 2017

Shiftings

Shifting direction requires more time and space for some. The Willis Brothers made popular a truck-driver song, Give me Forty Acres and I’ll turn this Rig Around. For others, like Leonard Coote, redirection happens in an instant – a one-eighty. Tweakings, adjustments come as life moves forward. Still, the word radical characterizes Leonard’s shift. Peace displaced the turmoil of past days.

He felt genuinely reborn. “Joy flooded my being as I realized I was now a child of God. Everything was different. The very leaves on the trees the next morning had a different tint. . .”

Impassioned by the love ignited within him he wasted no time sharing with others. Sending away for, then hand-delivering, thousands of Japanese-language tracts in the market-place grew to a passion. Prayer, Scripture, Community, Worship – each of these anchored him. Fulfilling his five-year commitment to the company that had brought him to the Far East, he resolved to remain. Now as a missionary.

My Bible College years informed, stirred and strengthened my conviction to work overseas. The school library, its biographies of men and women yielding themselves in service, added to my stirrings. Accounts of America’s first missionary, Adoniram Judson, who with his wife, ventured off to Burma. Stories of five young missionaries speared to death by members of an Ecuadorian people group, a remote tribe the young men and their wives had sought to reach with words of life and hope. Other inspiring biographies.

And there was Leonard Coote. Upstart businessman-turned-missionary. I met him just once, shortly before his death. By then Leonard had served more than fifty years in the Far East and a good number elsewhere.

Among Leonard’s passions was training. He launched the founding of three Bible colleges. One in Japan, the second in Korea. Leonard opened his third training center in 1942 in San Antonio, Texas. International Bible College, my alma mater.
©2017 Jerry Lout

September 12, 2017September 12, 2017

A Sound Of Drums

“Do you hear something, Hon?”

The drum-beat rhythms seemed distant and ill-defined – more like a dream than real. Indeed, for a moment I thought the sound was a dream. But it grew in strength and as we lay wide-eyed in our fully-darkened sleeping quarters, our senses were strained. Time passed slowly.

“They’re coming nearer.”

Taranganya occupied a tiny dot on the rare Kenya map that found the outpost worthy of any space at all. The village’s claim to fame included a butcher shop. Flies gathered there to hike around on suspended beef portions well before customers took their cuts home to savor them for themselves. Pressure cookers were prized items in any missionary dwelling.

Two government schools roughly book-ended the butchery, one for elementary kids, the other, high-schoolers. Beyond these, the one evidence that Taranganya village existed was Bukuria Mission.

Bukuria. Our first upcountry home. The place an outdoor hired hand pummeled a seven-foot spitting cobra after she raised her head just yards away and shot venomous spray my direction.

Bukuria – where a tornado ripped the metal roof off our neighbor’s house to hurl it across the compound, pretzelizing it in the branches of several trees on the way out.

Bukuria was a kind of place that stirs nostalgia. Past residents recall images of smoke clouds wafting over distant Maasai plains – evidence of herdsmen purging brown grasslands before the onset of welcome March rains.

A night watchman, Nyamahanga, was a fixed security presence on the station, greeting us at our first arrival. His armor consisted of a homemade bow with a handful of arrows (razor sharp). We had heard that tribal skirmishes may flare up in the area now and then. One wouldn’t want to be caught in the cross-fire, or worse yet, become the direct target of an angry archer.

“Lord, thanks for watching over us, over this place.”

The mission station rested on the uppermost slope of a gradually-ascending hill. Its entrance-point marked the head of a sweeping curve of the narrow, unpaved road passing before it. Our new home was in a remote sector of Kenya just five miles north of Tanzania’s unpatrolled border. The massive waters of Lake Victoria glistened from her banks 40 miles to our west.

We, the newbie missionaries, had just moved more than two hundred miles to this place, having received little orientation. We had no actual history with anyone of the Kuria Tribe.

The drumming volume intensified. Chanting sounds in a local dialect unknown to us fueled our anxiety.

Had we pondered more the impact of faith since the arrival of outsiders bearing the Jesus-news three decades earlier, our jitters would have lessened.

Our night of fitful sleep finally passed and we asked the obvious question.

The midnight drum-beats and chanting voices had stirred old film images of painted warriors, pith helmets and boiling pots. But we traced our Saturday night of sleeplessness to a little band of Kuria believers. En route to a prayer meeting.